Trump is crippling Obamacare

Its own deep flaws are doing that

The Trump administration is slowly but surely making sure that Obamacare will fail on its own, infers Sarah Kliff of Vox. Heavy cuts to funding for advertising and in-person enrollment groups, Obamacare is already seeing significant drops in people signing up. Sick people are most likely to sign up anyway, but their higher medical costs will make premiums rise for everyone. Healthy people signing up keep those premiums down. The window for open enrollment was also halved, making it even harder for people to do this. For Obamacare to work effectively, the government should be supporting it, not undermining it.

Obamacare involves fundamental flaws that benefit a minority while raising costs for the majority, asserts Sally C. Piles of Real Clear Health. Guaranteed issue rules that make it impossible for individuals to be turned away for pre-existing conditions encourage people to wait to get sick before signing up. This issue was never adequately fixed. Community ratings guarantee the same price to each member of a community, to avoid sick people having to pay more. These measures were a huge reason why premiums have gone up drastically for all involved. Obamacare’s own flaws, unrelated to the GOP, are dragging it downward.